Alien Expectations
by Doctor McFly
Summary: Episode Two: The Doctor takes Marty to the other side of the Universe in order to find information on whose hunting time travellers and instead finds one of his oldest enemies. TBC in Episode Three: Go West, Young Man!
1. The Final Marketplace

(Welcome to my episodic crossover fic. This is episode two, and while you can start reading here, you might want to visit my profile to get the whole story with Episode One: Frozen in Time)

Back to the Doctor

Alien Expectations Part 1

Tuesday

November 26th

1985

The TARDIS shook and swayed, throwing its passengers back and forth as it moved through the universe towards its destination. Marty hadn't been expecting such a bumpy ride and held onto the circular consol that wrapped around the time vortex in the centre of the TARDIS for dear life.

Below him the paneling on the floor had been taken apart, so that he and the Doctor could place Jennifer into the bowels of the ship. The Doctor had hooked Jennifer up to the time vortex as Marty watched on with concern.

The insanity of the last hour had threatened to overload Marty's mind, but he had managed to keep control over himself. Jennifer was frozen, her body thrown out of sync when a time travelling robot had attacked her and sucked out her time energy. That would have been enough to make most people check themselves into the nearest insane asylum, but things didn't really get weird until he stepped into a time machine spaceship, that looked like a phone booth, and was bigger on the inside.

Time travel was nothing new to Marty, but putting his trust in a complete stranger and travelling with him god knew where into space in order to bring Jennifer back from the brink of death was hard for Marty to swallow.

He barely said anything as the Doctor ranted like a crazy person, rattling off incomprehensible techno-babble after Marty had made the mistake of asking how the TARDIS could move through time and space when it was just a phone booth on the outside.

He had understood one sentence: "It's not a phone booth, it's a police box – of course it's not really that either, it just looks like that. The TARDIS comes with a chameleon circuit…" the Doctor had gone on, but that was the point the words stopped making sense.

Marty knew he might be gone a long time, that it might take years for Jennifer to absorb enough of the time vortex to come back to life, but he couldn't stomach the thought of going home to say goodbye to his family. He knew without an explanation to give them it would be too difficult. The only thing he did before taking off with the Doctor was run to his car and grab a few things, like his skateboard and guitar, then he was back on board the TARDIS with the Doctor, who immediately grinned at him as he kicked a lever with his red converse sneakers.

"Allons-y!"

Marty lurched forward and spent the next minute or so seriously questioning his decision-making abilities.

Then everything went still.

"What happened?" Marty asked after a beat.

"We're here," the Doctor proudly announced, checking a few screens and readouts.

"Here? Where here?"

"Adverspars 42."

"Doc, what are you talking about?"

"Open the door and find out."

Marty unlatched his fingers from the consol, his eyes briefly looking down and seeing the drape that was covering Jennifer, then he skeptically began walking down the ramp towards the blue door.

He thought maybe there had been a malfunction, but instead of finding Doc Brown's lab on the other side of the door, he found himself staring at a large domed ceiling, a few dozen stories high, light streaming down and illuminating the lush and green marketplace below.

"This is the Final Marketplace," the Doctor said, suddenly standing next to Marty, staring out at the brand new sight before them. "If you can't find something here, it doesn't exist."

"But… but how? When?" Then he glared at the Doctor. "Did we time travel?"

"Not at all, it's the same day and hour we left Earth, only now we're on the opposite side of the universe," the Doctor continued walking out and went towards the great crowd of… Marty couldn't believe his eyes, hundreds of people were walking past them, buying goods at shops, eating in small cafes, having jovial conversations, and not one of them was human.

There were aliens of all shapes and sizes, some with six arms, some with dozens, some with no arms but tentacles instead. Leathery skin, striped fur, glowing scales; no two aliens were alike.

"Jesus Doc…" Marty didn't understand, _couldn't_ understand how the TARDIS and the Doctor had managed to take him to an alien world, but he knew without a doubt that it was true.

"No time to waste Marty!" The Doctor called back at him. "Close the door behind you and no one can get in."

Marty shut the door behind him, and quickly caught up to the Doctor. "Did you say the other side of the _universe_? What are we doing here?"

"Looking for information."

Marty could barely concentrate with all the alien sights and sounds bombarding him. "What information?"

"We need to know who sent that robot, and why."

Ah yes, the time travelling robot. The Doctor had dismantled it before it could cause any more damage and it was currently residing in a cold storage unit – just in case.

"You think we're going to find out info on a robot… in a space market?"

"Like I said, if we can't find it here: it doesn't exist."

Marty was overwhelmed. "Where do we even start looking?"

"We could always ask," the Doctor stopped in front of a perfectly round, blue creature with 16 eyes and a beak instead of a mouth. "Excuse me my good… ball, I don't suppose you could help us out."

"What'cha looking for?" The ball inquired.

"Doc," Marty leaned towards the Doctor, "it's speaking English."

"He's not speaking English, the TARDIS is translating everything your hear into English."

The ball looked at them perplexed.

Marty just shrugged. "I don't understand anything he says either."

The Doctor continued without skipping a beat. "We're looking for the Oslunctus."

All 16 of the ball's eyes went wide with shock. It rolled slightly forward. "It's been a long time since anyone's come around looking for the Oslunctus."

"Whose the… Oslunckus?"

"The Oslunctus is the great seer. Some say she can see into every corner of the universe."

"Really?" Marty looked at the Doctor for confirmation.

"Well, I don't know about every corner, but she does know a thing or two most people don't."

"I can point you in the right direction, but if you know about the Oslunctus, then you know she doesn't see just anyone."

The Doctor grinned. "I think she'll see me."

OOO

59 stories below the Final Marketplace Velox Ieiunium was late. The five-foot-tall, green and yellow spiked biped ran as fast as he could through the cramped metal corridors. His brother, Celox, must have accidentally turned off his alarm this morning, and Velox was now going to be at least an hour late getting to work.

To make matters worse, construction had forced him to take an alternate route and Velox was beginning to lose track of where he was. It was only a matter of time before it dawned on him that he was lost.

Velox slowed to a stop as he came to three hallways leading in different directions. He finally had to give up, go back the way he had come, and be even later. He just knew he was going to get fired over this.

"Pst, hey, you lost?" A gravely voice called out from one of the hallways. The hallway was slightly darker than the other two. A distant light in it flickering on and off, so Velox could barely make out the shape of a skinny silhouette.

"Who's there?" Velox called over to him.

"Just a friendly stranger. It looks like you're lost." The silhouette didn't move, so Velox took a step towards it.

"Yeah… a little."

"Come with me, I'll show you the way."

"I don't know." Velox was uncertain. He knew he should turn back.

"Trust me," his voice seemed to drip from his mouth.

"Hey," something about the silhouette caught Velox's eye, something he was pulling out. "What is that? What are you doing? HEY!"

There was a loud flash, and then silence.

**To Be Continued…**

(Well, with my essay finished and my Japanese test behind me I have a little time to focus on this fic – which is slowly growing larger than I can really handle on my own. Oh dear. Either way, I'm still having fun writing it, mostly because this episode is much closer to a regular episode of Doctor Who than the last one was. Or is it? Give me a piece of your mind in a review. This episode will be six chapters long, which I think the future episodes will be – but then again a week ago I was certain every episode would only be four chapters long, so I think you guys will soon have to accept the fact that I am a slightly unreliable source of information.)


	2. The Oslunctus

Back to the Doctor

Alien Expectations Part 2

"So your ship can read my mind… and that's how it translates everything I hear?" Marty asked as they walked through the bright marketplace

The Doctor had spent the last five minutes of their walk trying to dumb down the intricacies of the TARDIS and was getting to the point where he was going to accept an even moderate understanding Marty might achieve. The Doctor could tell Marty wasn't simple, but there were some things it always seemed to take longer for humans to understand, especially one who was more interested in music than science.

"Well, sort of – yes, exactly."

"Doc, I don't know if I like the idea of something reading my mind."

"There's no danger in it. Besides, it's the same thing Jennifer is connected to."

If Jennifer was connected to a thing that could read his mind, did that mean she could read his thoughts…?

"Jesus Doc, you really know how to make a situation seem worse."

They had come to the end of the market and a great arch lay in front of them leading to a huge, long hallway. Marty was briefly reminded of Dorothy walking towards the Great Oz.

Did that make him Dorothy?

"You sure this is the way, Doc? Shouldn't there be signs or something? Great Olipstick this way?"

"Oslunctus," the Doctor corrected him, turning down yet another corridor, "and she doesn't exactly advertise."

"And what makes you so sure she's going to see us?"

The Doctor stopped walking. They had come to a large opaque glass door. Or at least, Marty assumed it was a door, but without any sign of a doorknob Marty couldn't be sure.

"I believe you've been expecting me," the Doctor said coolly to the door.

Suddenly the glass parted in the middle and slid apart to a marble atrium where an alien that could have passed for a five-foot-tall human if it weren't for the fact that he was covered in red and yellow spikes smiled at up them.

"Are you he?" The alien looked back and forth expectantly between both of them.

"He who?" Marty asked in confusion.

"The Time Lord."

"Uh…" Marty looked up at the Doctor, who wore a strangely serious expression.

"I have questions for your mistress," the Doctor said.

"Yes, of course, this way my Lord," the creature bowed, then turned and walked into the atrium. Marty and the Doctor followed.

"What, is he serious? Are you some kind of British Lord?"

"I'm not British."

"But, your accent. What is it? Scottish then?"

"Gallifreyan."

"Where's that, Australia?"

The alien halted in front of another glass door, he made a quick motion with his hands and the door opened to a darkened room. Marty was hit with a cloud of incense. The small room was covered in dark drapes and strange glass and metal shapes hung from the ceiling.

At the far wall a figure sat on a large pillow. Marty couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, because the figure wore a large black hat with a thick veil that hung over its face. In its small, gloved hands it held a long cigarette holder, a brown cigarette burning at its end. When the Oslunctus brought the cigarette up to its face the bottom of the veil was lifted for a moment and Marty was surprised to see a smooth, feminine ivory chin with rosebud lips painted deep red.

"So, you have finally come to me, Doctor," the voice was a woman's, but Marty couldn't figure out if she was old or young. It was a deep soothing voice, but there was something sharp about it. The words were soft, but their meanings seemed to snap at Marty.

"Can you tell me what I want to know?" The Doctor asked.

"We'll be even now, Doctor. Do you really want to cash in your favour now?"

"I'll take the chance."

Her head turned towards Marty, and as she pulled her cigarette away he could just make out her red lips begin to smile at him as the black veil covered her face completely once more.

"It waited for you," she whispered. "On your earth date… October… 26th… You fell out of time and the machine came into it. There it appeared, and there it waited."

"That's the day we first time travelled…" Marty started, but stopped when he saw the Doctor was staring at him with a slightly more intense than usual stare.

"This man you mentioned before, Brown, was that the first time he ever used the flux capacitor he built?"

"Well, yeah," Marty shrugged. "First Einstein, then me, and then Jennifer and the Doc – Doc Brown."

"Hm," said the Doctor.

"Are you saying it's not a coincidence?"

"Well, I'm not saying anything yet."

"Was it?" Marty asked the Oslunctus.

"I do not know. The machine is not of this time. I only see the present. I can only call up the past. I cannot even guess at the future."

"So what can you tell us about the damn thing?" The smell of incense was nauseous and the close quarters of the room was beginning to make him feel uneasy. He just wanted to get out of there already.

She brought up her cigarette again and took a long drag, and as the smoke settled beneath her veil she spoke again.

"That robot was not the first machine of its kind to visit earth."

"Where exactly did it go before? When?"

Her head shook.

"Too long ago. The memory is in a fog… But for one detail. The name it called out. The name of its prey… Emmett Brown."

"What happened to the Doc? Is he all right?" Marty's voice broke as he remembered watching Doc Brown getting gun downed all those weeks ago. He couldn't stand the thought of his friend being in danger again.

"I see a fight…" she paused, then shook her head, "but that is all."

"It knows your names," the Doctor said quietly, his eyes deep in thought.

"What does that mean Doc?"

"It's not just a random time traveller hunt. Whoever built these robots knows not only who is a time traveller," the Doctor ran his fingers through his hair as he thought out loud, his voice becoming quicker and higher until his every word rang out with the speed and accuracy of machinegun fire. "They don't just appear somewhere and wait around until they detect a time traveller! They know what times and places these people have travelled too. Which means that every single time traveller out there is in danger. Do you understand what this means Marty!"

He grabbed Marty's shoulder and started shaking the teen.

"Yeah!" Marty pulled away. "It means we gotta find Doc Brown!"

The Doctor barely skipped a beat on the outside, but inside his mind he took a moment to switch gears. He pushed aside all the names that had first come to mind and realized he had the put them behind the only other person they knew for certain had met one of these robots before.

"Yes, of course," the Doctor began to calm down, but he still came off as a professor who had drunk too much coffee. "Where is he?"

"I- I don't know," Marty stammered.

"What?"

"Emmett Brown no longer exists in this time," the Oslunctus whispered.

"That's right, he stayed behind in 1885, but he built another time machine. He's out there somewhere travelling through time with his family."

"1885…" the Doctor ground his teeth and he began to pace in a small circle. "A good pace to start; we can't risk going back on your own timeline to save him, there are too many variables at risk."

"Tell me about it," Marty, of course, knew all too well about the catastrophic effects of going back on one's own timeline.

"What was the exact time you left 1885?"

The date was easy to remember, because he spent a week thinking Doc Brown would die that day, but instead he had saved him and gone back to the future and got his happy ending… or at least he was supposed to have gotten his happy ending.

"September 7th."

"The time Marty, exactly."

"Just about nine in the morning."

"Good, then all we have to do is go back after that specific moment in time."

"But Doc-"

The Oslunctus cleared her throat. It was a surprisingly chime-like noise.

"Doctor," she said sharply.

"Yes?" The Doctor became completely calm again and Marty was astounded at the change.

"I must say, while I enjoy watching your adventures through time, nothing quite compares to the pleasure of seeing you in person. So I have a request."

The Doctor smiled. "Oslunctus, do you like being in debt to me?"

Marty couldn't see if she was smiling, but would have bet anything she was.

"There is something terrible beneath this market. It hides itself from my vision, and only something truly powerful could do that. You must find this thing. You must… take care of it."

"What is he, an inter-galactic exterminator or something?" Marty asked.

The Oslunctus giggled. "Something like that… but an extermination is certainly what I need."

"But we gotta go Doc."

"We have time."

"What? What time? The Doc's in trouble! There's no time!"

"Well, we do have a time machine."

And then it finally hit Marty. He was going to time travel after all. Every atom he was made of seemed to shudder at once. What if he made a mess of things again? What if this time he was finally abandoned in the wrong time? What would happen to Jennifer?

"Celox," the Oslunctus said softly, and the door to the room opened.

The short alien who had ushered them to see her stood there.

"Yes Mistress?" Celox Ieiunium said calmly.

"Velox has been taken."

Celox's eyes bulged out of his skull. "No…" he breathed.

"On his way to work, on the 59th floor. You need the Doctor to follow his trail."

To both Marty and the Doc's shock Celox immediately turned and ran out of the room.

"Wait, Celox!" The Doctor called after him and took off running as well.

"Doc, wait! What about _my_ Doc!"

The Doctor either didn't hear him or simply didn't acknowledge him, either way he was already out the door, leaving Marty suddenly alone on the other side of the universe.

**To Be Continued…**

(Oddly enough, I was already working on this chapter before I even posted chapter one of Episode One. So if I had so much done why did I take a break between these two episodes? Well production has seriously slowed down, and as of posting this I actually still have another chapter and a half to write for episode two. I said it before, but it's worth saying again: I'm really only doing this for fun and I don't want to force myself to meet crazy deadlines because then I won't enjoy doing this as much… Anyway, let's talk about the Oslunctus! I don't know if I got the spelling of her name right, I don't even know if I got the sex right, the Oslunctus was only mentioned by the Doctor, in the original series, in an off-hand comment. I have no idea if the Oslunctus was meant to appear later in a series but got dropped, or if she appeared in some of the lost episodes from the early-early days, either way I think in creating her I was mostly influenced by Yuuko Ichihara from xxxHolic. Hope you enjoyed my strange interpretation of the seer who, apparently, owes the Doctor "one.")


	3. Alone Again

Back to the Doctor

Alien Expectations Part 3

Marty took off running after the Doctor, but the second it took for him to react to his ride running off on him was enough for Celox and the Doctor to disappear down one of the many hallways. Marty stopped and tried to listen for footsteps, but the noise from the nearby marketplace drowned out anything else he might have heard.

He turned around to ask the Oslunctus where they had gone, or to ask what floor she had said, but the glass doors had closed and nothing he did could make them open. Marty wanted to laugh from the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, but swore – loudly – instead.

"I don't believe this is happening," he kicked the door, but still there was no result.

OOO

The Doctor raced after Celox through the metal corridors.

"Wait!" The Doctor called, but Celox – who was easily outrunning the Doctor – didn't even look over his shoulder to see who was yelling to him.

It wasn't until he ran into the opening doors of the lift that he looked at the Doctor.

"Hold the doors! I want to help!"

Celox looked uncertain, but held the doors anyway and a moment later the Doctor ran in and the doors closed behind him.

"Celox, was it? I'm the Doctor," the Doctor grinned and held out his hand.

"Yes, I know," Celox pulled something small and metallic out of his pocket, it was slightly larger than Celox's hand and the length was the same as the distance between his ear and mouth. A phone, the Doctor realized. Celox began to dial a number. "She always told me you had impeccable timing."

"Well, I do what I can."

Celox pulled the phone away in frustration. "He's not picking up his PC!"

"PC?"

"Personal Communicator, obviously," Celox waved his phone, or rather PC, before the Doctor and then shoved it into his pocket. He watched the lift numbers descend; they were halfway to level 59.

"What's been going on here Celox?"

"She told me people were going missing… but I- Well I certainly didn't think my brother would be next. With the others she said there was nothing we could do. That we had to wait, until you showed up."

"Do they all disappear from the same floor?"

"No, there have been disappearances from level 42 to 63."

"We have to figure out exactly where your brother went today."

The lift doors opened and Celox began running again.

"This way!" He yelled to the Doctor, without even turning around, and the Doctor immediately followed him through the dark, rusted underbelly of the Final Marketplace.

OOO

At a loss for how to find the Doctor, Marty decided to go back the way he came. No matter what, the Doctor would have to return to the TARDIS eventually, right?

He made it back to the large glass domed marketplace and looked around. They had weaved through the countless rows of stalls, but Marty was certain they had left the blue box on the opposite side of the room.

Making his way back to the TARDIS was practically impossible though. Without the Doctor guiding him through the crowd he found himself practically spinning around with every step trying to take in everything he was seeing.

There was nothing truly recognizable. Every shape looked new somehow, every colour seemed to be slightly off, no noise was like anything he had heard before. The only familiar thing he found himself picking out of the market was the brief snippets of English the TARDIS was translating for him.

If someone this morning had told him he was going to be able to have a conversation with an alien later that day he… well, actually he would have been a little skeptical, but it certainly wouldn't have been the strangest suggestion ever given to him.

"Watch it," some pale, tentacled alien gurgled at him.

"Sorry ma- err, dude," Marty thought it best to avoid genders. He had a strange suspicious that out here the chances weren't nearly as good as 50/50.

One of the merchants caught his eyes and began to wave him over. The alien had a golden hue, four thick trunks for arms, each one ending in six fingers and an opposable thumb.

"Sir, sir," his massive arms continued to wave at him. Marty let his curiosity overwhelm him. "Welcome, welcome."

"What are these?" Marty looked at the merchant's table covered in small bronze or gold trinkets. Some were on chains, like necklaces, while ones the same size as his palm were in cases. All of them reminded Marty of the inside of clocks, tiny gears twitching and turning.

"Truly rare items sir. This is the only place you can find them outside of the Skavros System. Location charms!"

He looked at Marty as though this fact was meant to impressive him.

"You don't say. Uh… what does it do?"

"Hm, first time off planet kid?"

"Uh, yeah, definitely."

"I could tell. Where ya from?"

"Earth."

"Ah, what do they call you guys again? Earthlings? Or was it monkeys?"

"Human, actually."

"Well little human, I'll give you a special first time off-planet special."

"Unless you take U.S. dollars, I don't think we can do business."

"Now, now, don't be so hasty. We can always trade. I've never been to Earth. Trade me something from Earth."

"But what are they?"

The alien picked one of the ones on a gold chain up. "No matter where you are in the universe, this little device can give you the exact coordinates if you ask. It even gives you the local name."

Marty looked at the metal charm up close. It didn't really look like cogs in a clock after close inspection, there were far too many, they weren't currently moving, and speckled through it were red and purple crystals that seemed to vibrate.

"Where am I now?"

The gears began to whirr at a fast pace.

"The Last Marketplace," replied a singsong voice. "Adverspars 42. Solar system 1A-"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Marty didn't know if it was just an easily programmed trick, but he suddenly pictured Jennifer wearing it. When she got better and found out he had travelled to the other end of the universe, he could give her a piece of this place. He fished around in his pockets until he found something rectangular and plastic.

"I don't suppose you like Van Halen," Marty said as he looked down at his walkman.

OOO

"Master," the gravely voice sputtered like a backfiring engine.

"Report," whined the metallic voice from its shadows.

"The detection programme you place within the surveillance system…" He swallowed hard, pushing his way through the wires that hung from the low ceiling to be closer to his master.

"Yes?"

"It has found something."

"Show me."

"I don't want to be too optimistic, there's no _definitive_ proof-"

"Show me!"

The creature hobbled over to a screen and after pushing a few buttons, an overhead image of Marty McFly speaking to the vendor came on, their conversation began playing itself to the dark figure.

"_-rst time off planet kid?"_

"_Uh, yeah, definitely."_

"_I could tell. Where ya from?"_

"_Earth."_

"_Ah, what do they call you guys again? Earthlings? Or was it monkeys?"_

"_Human, actually."_

"Human," the metal voice went up a pitch. "The perfect donor has been located."

"I will, of course, find him for you… just in case he's telling the truth."

"He is human," his master insisted. "I detect no trace of a lie."

The creature looked at his metal master, a rusted metal hunk of a torso, the skeletal remains of a right arm, the teardrops drilled under its eye-sockets, and shuddered in fear.

"The Cybermen will rise again," his master, the Cyberman, said sternly.

**To Be Continued…**

(Let's play the number game! How many times I can manage to get the numbers "42" and "63" into this fic? Now, why did I pick the Cybermen? Well mostly because it works in the timeline. I couldn't use Daleks, because they essentially don't exist at this point… even though of course they do, thank you 11th Doctor. That, and I don't really care for Daleks that much. Cybermen freak me out, the idea of being stripped of your emotions and turned into a cold killing machine… damn. No wonder Star Trek lovingly ripped them off and created the Borg. Okay, so I wasn't really going to talk about how I was writing Marty or the Doctor, I wanted the fic to speak for itself, but I think I should probably give a brief summary of what I'm going for: At this point in the Doctor's life he isn't keen on the idea of travelling with a companion, his most recent being Donna Noble – which ended horribly. So he's going to be a little standoffish with Marty, even slightly exasperated with him at times when he wouldn't normally be with others. Marty was a little harder for me to figure out. Is time travel old-hat to him at this point? Yeah. And he's not going to be as thrown off by new things as much as some of the other companions. That's why when he goes into the TARDIS for the first time he manages to rationalize it fairly well. That being said, aliens are completely new to him and will still give him pause. And that's all I want to explain, the rest will hopefully be in the text.)


	4. The Flickering Hallway

Back to the Doctor

Alien Expectations Part 4

The Doctor and Celox began their search the last place Celox had seen his brother, their home. They, like most of the inhabitants under the Final Marketplace, lived in something closer to a janitor's closet than an apartment. There was just one room, and if the Doctor spread his arms out he could touch both walls.

"This is where you live?"

"Yes, what of it?" Celox asked in an annoyed tone.

"Nothing. It's lovely, really lovely. I mean, what do I know about homes? I live in a blue box."

There was no hint in their home of where Velox might have gone, but Celox was fairly certain his brother would have been going to work. As they began going down the hall Velox would have taken, Celox immediately noticed something was wrong.

"There's a detour," Celox said, reading a notice of construction.

"Interesting," the Doctor looked around, but couldn't see anything specifically suspicious about the detour. It might have just been a coincidence.

"He either turned back, or…" Celox and the Doctor looked down a small dank hall that smelled like mildew.

"Or continued on," the Doctor began down the hall, and this time it was Celox who diligently followed behind.

The subterranean complex was poorly managed and it was clear this was only a place the dregs of society were meant to inhabit or even visit. It wasn't surprising to the Doctor that someone would want to kidnap people from here, because no one would even notice them go missing – no one except the Oslunctus, of course.

They hallways they were walking down zigzagged in every possible direction, but for a long time didn't connect to any others. Finally the Doctor and Celox came to a point where they had three possible paths to go down. Two of them looked like the hall they had come down, the third was a darker hallway, punctured by a flickering light.

"He could have gone down any of these," Celox said with aggravation.

"Yes, but if I were some unspeakable evil there really is only one hallway _I_ would have come from."

They both looked down the long, dark hallway.

"I don't think I want to go down there," Celox said quietly.

"Which is exactly why we ought to," he grinned. "Don't you think?"

Celox took a deep breath of stale air, and started walking down the ominous pathway. It was clear this hall had been abandoned for years – maybe even decades. The Final Marketplace was thousands of years old, whole sections of the underground had been abandoned over the centuries as it expanded and changed. It would have been so easy for something to slip in and hide there, something that only came out once in a while to… what, feed? What was this thing the Doctor had found himself hunting?

There were several doors lining the hallway, their hinges rusted shut, and the smell of the rotting metal became stronger with every step they took.

The Doctor stopped suddenly next to one of the doors.

"Celox, what do you make of this?"

"What of what?" Celox turned and looked at the door the Doctor was examining. It didn't look any different from all the other doors to him.

"The hinges, the rust around them has been broken."

"It's been opened recently," Celox looked down at the ground. "And there are scrapes on the floor where the door must have opened."

"So there are," the Doctor grinned. "I knew you were clever, Celox."

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned over the lock. Celox saw a blue light emit from it as it gave off a metallic whine, then there was a quiet click as the door unlocked itself.

"Shall we?"

"After you," Celox took a step back.

The Doctor opened the door, holding his sonic screwdriver at the ready, but nothing sinister jumped out at them. Instead the two just looked into a dark closet – until they noticed a spiral staircase descending through the metal.

"New," the Doctor scanned the staircase. "Well, relatively new anyway. Someone modified this to make a hideout."

"Shouldn't we… um, call the police?"

"What? Wait for me all this time and then just call the police?"

"Well…"

"Where's the fun in that?" The Doctor then jumped onto the staircase and raced into the abyss. "You coming Celox?"

"Yes," his voice squeaked and he followed the Doctor.

Their decent was significantly shorter than either had expected. Whoever had made this little hideout and done so between the floors 59 and 60. The Doctor had to stoop to keep from banging his head on the low ceiling. They were inside the floor, surrounded by pipes and wiring, all of which had fallen into the same decay as the floor above them.

Celox didn't have to ask which way they should go next, both of them could see a dim light at the end of this new corridor. They quietly, and slowly, made their way towards it.

Every inch of Celox's tiny body screamed at him to turn and run back up the stairs, but the confidence the Doctor had comforted him. He felt that so long as he stayed close to the Doctor he would be safe. That, Celox realized, was the Doctor's power: to make others better, stronger. That was why the Oslunctus knew they had to wait for him, that was why Celox knew they could save his brother.

The corridor led to a room larger than what Celox expected. Walls had been taken away to make, what? A laboratory? There were all sorts of machines and computers in there that Celox could only stare at in confusion. Most of them looked rusted beyond use.

Lit by only one light-bulb it was hard to make out everything in the lab, so it took a moment for either investigator to notice the stacks of cages lined up along the back wall, and there, lying in one of them, was a familiar figured.

"VELOX!" Celox couldn't contain the joy and relief that flooded through him. He ran towards his brother, who sat up at the noise, looking around in confusion. "Velox, it's me."

"Celox! How? When?"

"The Doctor helped me find you!"

"Who? Wait, how did you get past them?"

"Past whom?" Celox asked, trying to find a way to unlock the cage. "Doctor, where's your shinny-zappy thing?"

"It's not a shinny-zappy thing, it's a sonic screwdriver," the Doctor said, zapping the lock with the shinny thing. "And these are deadlock sealed."

"What does that mean?"

"It means no sonic device will open it."

The Doctor frowned, looking around for a switch to unlock the cages.

"Get out of here," Velox pleaded in a hushed tone. "They must have heard you by now. Run while you can."

"I'm not leaving you."

"But he'll hear."

"Who, Velox? Who took you?

"I don't know, I never saw his face, but he's not on his own. There's something else in the other room. Someone else was here with me, but he was taken to the other room- he called him spare parts. He treated him like he wasn't alive."

"What happened to him?"

"I don't know- I don't know! But I heard the screams. Oh god, I couldn't hear anything but the screams…"

"Then you heard your future," came a gravely voice. It stood in the doorway, its head just barely touching the ceiling. It was incredibly thin, and held a silver stun gun, pointed directly at the Doctor, who dropped the sonic screwdriver back into his jacket pocket without this new threat noticing. "So, I guess there are two humans running around today."

"Are there?" The Doctor asked.

"Master will be so pleased," he pulled the trigger.

The Doctor felt the blast hit him, not an electrical jolt, but something chemical he couldn't fight. He crumpled to the ground. Velox screamed out for Celox to run, but it was too late, another shot and then his brother fell to the ground as well.

The creature laughed, and his voice echoed down the corridor.

**To Be Continued…**

(The first Marty-less chapter. I knew at one point the two would need to be separated, the Doctor always manages to wander away from his companions. I guess what I didn't realize is that the story would naturally replace Marty with a one-shot companion. The Doctor simply works better as a character with others around him. He might give strength to others, but others give the Doctor meaning.)


	5. Spare Parts

Back to the Doctor

Alien Expectations Part 5

The first problem Marty faced on returning to the TARDIS, was the fact that he couldn't actually open it. The door was shut tight, obviously locked, and without a key it looked like he would have to awkwardly stand around and wait.

The second problem Marty faced was the fact that he couldn't sit still. It was physically impossible. He was brimming over with energy, but every time he thought about walking it off he was terrified by the thought that the Doctor might return while he was gone and leave him behind – permanently this time.

The fact was he just didn't really know who the Doctor was. Could he be the kind of person who just abandoned people when it suited him? He didn't know, though he did know the Doctor had saved his life, and as far as he could tell he was trying to save Jennifer's as well.

That's when he realized he needed to start looking for the Doctor – and if possible he had to help him as well. He didn't have enough information to go off of, but at least he knew where he had last seen the Doctor. He shouldn't have given up looking for him in the first place.

He made his way back through the marketplace, this time feeling uneasy that he had waited too long. He had no idea what they were dealing with, but he was pretty sure the Oslunctus had called it horrible. He didn't care if looking for him turned into a waste of time, he knew he'd regret it if he didn't try to find him.

After wandering through the hallways around the Oslunctus' door he almost walked past the lifts, and would have kept going, but one of them opened at that moment. Nothing got in or out, it just stood there wearily, waiting, and Marty knew he needed to get on, but to what floor? Fifty something?

A noise caught his attention, some kind of scratching noise and then:

"Human," the word was hissed at Marty, and he turned to his right in confusion and saw a thin cloaked alien emerging from a door. Marty was suddenly aware of the fact that no one else was around, that the hallway suddenly seemed eerily silent. Even the thunderous noise of the marketplace was dim and almost gone.

"Excuse me?"

"Your kind loves to run about so much," the alien was slightly taller than Marty and took a menacing step towards him out of the shadows. "But you can't run to where I can't find you."

His first reaction was to step back, to put distance between this thing and himself – as much distance as he possibly could, but when the creature started pulling something out of his pocket and Marty saw the flash of metal, his instincts pushed him forward. He ran at the thing, turning his shoulder into him and tackling him to the ground.

The gun clattered away and Marty tried to go for it, but the alien reacted faster than Marty thought it would. It was on its feet as Marty crawled towards the gun, it grabbed his hair and pulled him back, and as he tried to struggle away it picked him up by the shoulders and pushed him against the wall so they were facing each other.

Marty wasn't deterred by the impossible strength coming out of this alien and managed to get one good punch in before the alien grabbed his neck and secured him against the wall, but the punch still managed to move the alien's hood and he finally got a good look at his attacker.

For a moment he had thought it was another robot, but this thing was undoubtedly made of flesh. Sickly grey flesh to be precise, pierced by large yellow eyes. Above its slightly sunken-in left eye socket Marty could also see a large scar, crudely stitched together, that wrapped around to the back of his skull, as though someone had performed brain surgery on him.

As the alien's grip tightened and he had a brief moment of panic; that this thing would kill him on the other side of the universe, that his family would never know what would happen to him, that he would never see Jennifer again, but as he blacked out he heard the alien's gravely voice:

"That's right, just fall asleep little human," it growled, and as Marty passed out his thoughts turned to what he was going to do to this alien when he woke up.

OOO

"Marty. Marty, can you hear me? Are you all right?" Somewhere, in the distance, Doc Brown's voice asked.

Marty groaned slightly. He had a headache and his body was stiff from lying on a hard surface.

"Keep it down Doc," he rolled onto his side, his memories slowly falling into place in his mind like Tetris blocks. Jennifer… robots… a blue box. "I had the weirdest dream."

"Dream's over, and I'm afraid we might be in a bit of trouble at the moment." Marty started wondering why Doc Brown had a British accent, and then he realized he couldn't be speaking with the Doc.

"Trouble?" Marty sat up, remembering the fight in the hallway with the scarred alien. He turned to the figure next to him, not Doc Brown at all, but still a comforting sight. "Doctor! Where the hell did you go?"

The Doctor looked around innocently. "Well, here."

"You left me! You just ran off and-"

"Is now really the time?" In another cage, Celox grumbled at them. "We need to figure out how to get out of this mess!"

Marty finally looked around at their situation. There were three cages in the underground lab, Marty and the Doctor separated into one each, while Celox and an alien Marty assumed had to be Celox's brother were in a cage together.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Nothing to be _too_ concerned about."

"Doc, we're in _cages_."

"Yes, well, that's probably the least of our concerns at this moment," the Doctor was no longer looking at him, but towards a door that led to another room, a door that was now opening.

The alien who had attacked Marty and been helping the Cyberman entered the lab. His hood was now down completely and as he walked beneath the dim light Marty got a good look at the scar on his head, and how the entire left side of his skull was concave.

It held something in his hand, something the Doctor recognized as a scanner. The alien walked up to the Doctor's cage first.

"You'll be pleased to know preparations are completed," he growled, and began to scan the Doctor. "Just need your blood-type now."

"Preparations for what?" Both Marty and the Doctor asked.

"My master needs spare parts, but to find something compatible… it's nearly impossible," the alien looked troubled a moment. "Even my own parts aren't good enough for him."

"Did he say spare parts?" Marty asked.

The scanner made a bleeping noise, and the alien furrowed his brow in confusion.

"What's this? What's this?" He muttered, and scanned the Doctor again. "This says you're not human."

"I'm not," the Doctor replied coolly.

"He's not?" Marty asked, his voice coming out slightly high-pitched. If the Doctor wasn't human… then what the hell was he?

The alien turned his scanner at Marty, and this time it dinged, and the alien looked incredibly relieved.

"The master will be pleased," he reached over a switch, pushed it, then took out a key and unlocked Marty's cage.

Marty immediately jumped at the alien, but this time he was expecting the attack and grabbed Marty's arm and twisted it behind him in a lock.

"Marty, don't panic," the Doctor called out.

"Don't panic!" Marty was completely at the alien's mercy, bent over at an uncomfortable angle, his arms pinned behind him by an alien whose grip was just as strong as that robot's. Then alien started dragging Marty towards the door. "This is a pretty good time to panic!"

"He won't come back!" Velox began to scream. "He's going to cut him up! I know it! I just know it!"

"WHAT!" Marty screamed, and was thrown through the doors.

**To Be Continued…**

(Not only was this chapter threatening to be late, but it also needed some serious rewrites. So, hopefully you like it, it was certainly the most problematic chapter so far. The problems mostly stemmed from me really trying to figure out Marty's character at the beginning. In a more random note: I was gonna give Marty a blood-type, A probably, but just for the sake of consistency I'm not going to make up aspects of any of the main characters, even if it does seem like something as harmless as blood-type. I want to stick as close to canon as possible. Also, I've just realized I have Marty's hair get pulled in both the fights he's in. Hm, I wonder what this says about me…)


	6. Cyberman

Back to the Doctor

Alien Expectations Part 6

"He's dead and we're next!" Velox continued to scream, and while Celox was doing his best to calm his brother down and not panic as well, the Doctor kept a stoic look on his face.

"Celox," he said once he was certain the door Marty had just been dragged through was shut, turning to the small alien. "You need to get the stun gun."

"Oh sure Doctor," Celox rolled his eyes. "I'm right on it."

"Good," the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and used it on the lock.

"I thought you said that wouldn't work."

There was a click, the door unlocked, the Doctor bounded out of the cage and began to unlock Celox's.

"It didn't, until he turned the deadlock switch off-"

"And couldn't turn it on while dragging your human off," the door unlocked and Celox jumped out as well.

Velox sat there stunned for a moment, then dashed out, but unlike his brother and the Doctor he immediately turned to the exit and started running as fast as he good.

"Velox!" Celox called after him in disbelief.

"Leave him!" The Doctor yelled and went for the door to that led deeper into the lab.

OOO

Marty hit the door and was pushed through. He had a moment to take in the smaller room, cluttered with the same pipes, wires and rusting equipment, but the centre of this room had a gurney strapped to it… a gurney covered not only in dry fetid blood, the smell of which instantly burned his nostrils, but also with still-wet glimmering blood.

And there, in a bucket in the corner, he saw a hand reaching out, as though it were trying to escape, and he realized it was all that was left from the last victim brought there.

The alien's grip on his arm loosened ever so slightly as the alien tried to get him to the gurney, but it was all Marty needed. He snapped his head back and the back of his skull impacted with the alien's soft nose. He felt the crunch and the alien gurgled in pain, instinctively letting go of Marty to grab his face.

Marty ignored the pain in his own head as he lunged towards the side of the room. There, on one of the table, he saw a rusted pipe. He grabbed it and swung it around like it was Biff's baseball bat.

The alien's eyes went wide in shock just before the pipe impacted with the concave side of his head, and he fell back against the wall in a daze.

Suddenly the door burst open and the Doctor ran in, branding his sonic screwdriver like a weapon towards the alien.

"Marty, are you all right?" The Doctor yelled, not looking away from the alien.

"Fine," Marty realized he was out of breath. He threw the pipe down and to his horror watched it roll towards the bucket of discarded body parts. "What the hell did I miss when we got separated?"

The Doctor had moved on though, all his attention was focused on the alien.

"Where is your master?"

The alien simply glowered up at the Doctor.

"I got it!" Celox ran into the room, holding the stun gun.

"Good, watch him," the Doctor ran back into the main lab, and Marty followed him. There was no way he was letting the Doctor out of his sight anymore. Celox stayed behind, ensuring the alien would pose no further threat to them.

There was only one door left to explore. The Doctor slowed down, cautiously walking forward, and Marty wondered if he shouldn't have kept his weapon.

The Doctor slowly pushed the door open with his foot. Marty peeked his head from behind the Doctor to stare into the dark room. The only light came from a half dozen or so TV monitors, which showed only static, and two piercing blue… eyes, Marty realized. Cold, blue lights, but eyes nonetheless.

"Doc, is that one of the robots?" Marty whispered.

"It's a robot all right," the Doctor seemed suddenly less tense. He took a step forward. "More specifically, a cyborg – a Cyberman."

The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at a control panel, it exploded into sparks, and suddenly lights came on in the room and they both got a good look at this Cyberman. Without legs and both arms, and what few parts it had left rusting, they knew it posed no threat.

"Doctor," its metallic voice spoke, practically in a pleading tone.

"It's not the same kind of robot as before," Marty wasn't asking. He figured if multiple alien races could exist, multiple types of robots could exist as well.

"Look at you," the Doctor said quietly. "Look at what you've become."

"I am the last," the Cyberman explained. "It is my purpose to recreate the Cyberman race. We will rise again. We will remake the universe in our own image. We will make the universe perfect."

"We? You and the little grey alien?" Marty interjected, feeling smug enough to grin, but the Doctor wasn't grinning.

"You were human once."

Marty looked at the Doctor in disbelief. That thing? Human? What the hell was human about it?

"That's why you needed human parts, you would reject anything alien you introduced to your body."

"We must survive. The alien parts would suffice until a human could be located."

"Just so I'm on the same wavelength, we are talking about _body_ parts, right? You murdered and dissected people for body parts?" Marty felt sick, and thinking about how close he came to becoming part of this thing only made that feeling worse.

"Even your assistant gave you a piece of himself."

"He was necessary to my resurrection. Parts of his brain were grafted onto mine, giving me back my higher function. In return, I promised to transform him into the first soldier of the new Cyberman army."

"You're sick. This is sick," Marty was beginning to pace with uneasiness.

"They have no emotions," the Doctor explained. "He can't understand why it's wrong to kill."

"Oh, I'm sorry, should I forgive him then?"

"No," the Doctor stepped up to the Cyberman and crouched down, so they were face to face. "You're never going to be complete. Not if it means killing someone else to do it."

"It is my purpose. I need the human's spare parts."

"I don't have spare parts!" Marty protested.

"Then you have no purpose," the Doctor said softly. "I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry, but what you're doing is meaningless."

The Cyberman was quiet for an impossibly long time. "Then… I must be deleted."

"Yes," was all the Doctor said, then held up his sonic screwdriver to the Cyberman. The Cyberman began sputtering words as the screwdriver whirred, then its lights went dim and the Cyberman powered down.

"Is it… dead?" Marty asked.

"It died a long time ago," the Doctor was quiet; he didn't look at Marty as he spoke to him. "The least I could do was put it out of its misery."

"Well," Marty finally said after a moment. "This is certainly turning into the most interesting day I've ever had – and believe me, that's saying something."

Suddenly they heard a loud banging noise, and a gravely scream coming from the other room.

They ran back through the lab into the room they had left Celox and the alien, throwing open the door, only the find Celox standing over the now dead alien, the rusted pipe Marty had used before now sticking out of its chest, a large pool of blood forming beneath him.

"Jesus!" Marty exclaimed.

"What did you do?" The Doctor looked at Celox with angry disapproval.

"I had to," Celox spoke quickly. "He came at me. I defended myself. I had no choice."

"You didn't have to kill him. There's always a choice-" The Doctor stopped himself, as though he was trying to keep from saying something cruel.

Marty could not fathom why the Doctor would be upset over the death of an alien who had literally tried to dissect Marty not five minutes ago. How could someone really feel sympathy so indiscriminately?

"You're clever Celox," the Doctor said after a moment, "but you're as much of a coward as your brother. Things didn't have to happen like this."

"He would have killed us if he'd had the chance."

"Apparently so would you."

Celox looked away indignantly, but Marty thought he saw something else in his eyes. Shame? Disappointment? Marty couldn't tell, the Doctor was leaving and Marty left with him. They left Celox alone, in the dim flickering light, only the dead left surrounding him.

OOO

"Hey Doc?" Marty finally asked after walking the whole way back to the TARDIS in silence.

"Hm?" The Doctor replied, opening the door and letting Marty in.

"You really think Celox was wrong to kill that guy? I mean, he kinda had it coming. Sort of putting him out of his misery, you know?"

The Doctor turned on Marty, but not angrily, there was nothing but compassion on his face. "Every life deserves mercy, deserves a second chance. If there was a way to save that Cyberman…" The Doctor shook his head. "You have to be willing to save every life if you want a chance to save any. I hope you never forget that."

Marty nodded a little uncertainly. "Okay."

"Now," the Doctor immediately started smiling again, running up to the consol. "To the old west! I love the old west, cowboys, Stetsons, saloons. Excellent!"

"Uh," Marty still wasn't used to the Doctor's wild mood swings. "Before we go. Just how often do these kind of things happen to you? I got the feeling from the Oslu-thing that Cybermen might be the kind of thing you encounter on a usual basis."

"Well, not usual. I mean, sometimes… er, often, I suppose."

"Often? So… what, not _every_ time."

"Oh no! Not _every_ time. Well…"

"Okay, you know what? It doesn't matter. I think I'm pretty committed by this point – or at least I should be committed," Marty sighed and sat down on the bench by the consol.

"That's the spirit. Allons-y!"

"Sure thing, Doc."

**To Be Continued in Episode Three: Go West, Young Man**

(I had to write, edit and post this all today. Things are gonna change from this point on. I'm sorry to say you will have to expect the updates of this fic to be a little more erratic. I will do my best to continue, especially seeing I am getting waaaaay more hits than I thought I would. Marty + The Doctor = Awesomely Epic Adventures! So I encourage you to watch my author's page, that way you'll get instant updates about Marty and the Doctor hiting the old west! So, a little about today's fic, which essentially wrote itself. Originally I just had the Doctor rescuing Marty, but as I wrote it I realized I didn't want Marty to be a damsel in distress, a least not this early on. He's got a little bit of proving to do with the Doctor, who – I'm sorry to say – feels a little saddled with Marty. Also, Velox ran off without my permission and Celox killing the alien was going to be written, but I really liked the idea of you guys not knowing how he died. Was it self-defense? Was it straight up murder? Either way, the outline I had written for this chapter was useless. Here's hoping future chapters will be just as interesting for me to write, lol.)

**Special Thanks:**

Isis the Sphinx and Lady Nefarankh! Without your lovely reviews I probably wouldn't have managed to get all six of these chapters out on time.


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